7.50PM THURSDAY APRIL 9TH​​​​​​​

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT​​

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Topping numerous Film of the Year polls (BFI’s Sight & Sound, The New York Times, Film Comment, AP), All We Imagine as Light is a luminous, intricately woven portrait of the intersecting lives of three nurses living in Mumbai. Written and directed by Payal Kapadia in her fiction feature debut, the film was selected for the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix.

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As much a tribute to Mumbai as it is a quiet critique, the film follows three very different women who have left their homes in search of opportunity in the big city. Each contends with her own emotional and material struggles, striving to build stability, both financial and personal, while questioning their relationships and navigating the pressures of a rapidly changing urban landscape shaped by gentrification and rising Hindu nationalism.

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A series of everyday yet nonetheless life-altering events unfold, prompting each woman to gently shed the societal expectations placed upon them, by others and by themselves. Lyrically told, visually rich, and suffused with atmosphere, longing, and gentle humour, this is a deeply rewarding and delicately crafted work. Both beautifully nuanced and disarmingly simple, it stands as a modern masterpiece.

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Join us for this special screening on April 9th.

7.50PM FRIDAY APRIL 17TH​​​​​​​

CUTTER'S WAY​​

 4K RESTORATION 

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Hailed by Time Out as “nothing less than a modern masterpiece,” Cutter’s Way serves as the closing salvo in a lineage of taut, politically charged thrillers such as All the President’s Men, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, and The Conversation. Empire magazine called it “a classy monument to the paranoia of post-Watergate America.” The film also fits neatly into the tradition of L.A. Neo-Noir cinema such as The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, Thief, Body Heat, Blue Velvet, To Live & Die in L.A., L.A. Confidential, Heat and even The Big Lebowski and Mulholland Drive.

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If you’ve only ever known John Heard as Macaulay Culkin’s dad in the Home Alone movies, you’ve been missing out on something truly special. A recent Financial Times article on Ivan Passer’s spectacular Cutter’s Way described Heard as “one of America’s great lost actors.” Despite a steady career that included memorable roles in Big, After Hours, Beaches, In the Line of Fire, The Pelican Brief, and The Sopranos, Heard’s masterful work in this film went largely unrecognized at its initial release due to a fumbled promotional effort by the studio. Today, however, Cutter’s Way stands as a masterclass in screen acting and one of American cinema’s finest forgotten gems.​

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The film also features an exceptional performance by Jeff Bridges (Lebowski, True Grit) as Richard Bone, a laid-back gigolo who becomes entangled in a murder investigation after witnessing the body of a dead cheerleader dumped in a quiet Santa Monica neighbourhood.

 

When his friends, Cutter (Heard), a disabled Vietnam veteran, and his intelligent, grounded wife Maureen (Lisa Eichhorn - Yanks, The Talented Mr. Ripley), learn about the murder, Cutter channels all his obsessive, unpredictable, and paranoid energy into confronting the suspected culprit: a powerful local oil tycoon, dragging the trio into an ever spiralling series of events. Portraying cynicism, vulnerability, and simmering anger all at once, Heard is positively electrifying in the role, and the entire film radiates with a unique neo-noir energy, that makes it both the definitive final statement on the post-Watergate era and a primal scream against the erosion of the American dream.

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Finally restored in 4K, Cutter’s Way is an engrossing, unusual, thrilling, and intelligent murder mystery with sharp political undertones, a landmark of American cinema that too few have experienced in all its glory.

8PM FRIDAY APRIL 24TH​​​​​​​

BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER​​

(DIRECTOR'S CUT)

 4K REMASTER 

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This icon of queer comedy cinema comes to White Wall Cinema this April!​

 

The queen of TV comedy directing, Jamie Babbit, has helmed multiple episodes of Gilmore Girls, Malcolm in the Middle, Ugly Betty, The L Word, Gossip Girl, The Middle, Girls, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Russian Doll, and Only Murders in the Building. But it’s her legendary debut feature, But I’m a Cheerleader, a riotous lampoon of the lunacy of conversion therapy, that remains her most beloved work.

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A mainstay of any top 10 list of queer cult classics, it boasts a ludicrously stacked cast: Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Poker Face, Russian Doll), Clea DuVall (The Faculty, Argo, Better Call Saul, The Handmaid’s Tale), RuPaul Charles (yes, as in RuPaul’s Drag Race), Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, Yellowjackets, The Last of Us), Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull), Michelle Williams (Shutter Island, The Fabelmans), Julie Delpy (The Before Trilogy), Bud Cort (Harold & Maude, The Life Aquatic), Mink Stole (EVERY John Waters film), Katharine Towne (Mulholland Drive, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Douglas Spain (Band of Brothers), Dante Basco (Rufio from Hook!), and many (yes, really) more.

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The film follows Megan (Lyonne), who, despite seeming like an all-American girl (jock boyfriend, good grades, and yes, a cheerleader) finds her parents staging an intervention, fearful she might be *shock horror* a lesbian. With the help of “ex-gay” Mike (RuPaul), she is carted off to the True Directions conversion therapy camp in the hope she can learn to be straight. But when she meets rebellious, unashamed teen lesbian Graham (Clea DuVall), the camp’s mission quickly begins to unravel.

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A high-camp comedy filled with brightly coloured sets and boundless energy, But I’m a Cheerleader is a tongue-firmly-in-cheek dissection of some of society’s less progressive attitudes toward sexuality and gender roles, and one big, glittery kick in the teeth to heteronormativity. Satisfyingly broad in its comedy, this light-hearted satire has a surprisingly heartfelt emotional core, with a charming cast gleefully embracing its low-budget indie spirit. It’s a vibe that has only grown in stature over time, cementing the film as one of the key works that helped redefine lesbian cinema.

7.50PM WEDNEDAY APRIL 29TH​​​​​​

THE COEN BROTHERS'S

THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE

 NEW 4K REMASTER 

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We know it’s a hotly debated topic, but even within the extraordinary legacy of the Coen Brothers, (Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit, Inside Llewyn Davis, and more) we think there’s a legitimate case to be made that The Man Who Wasn’t There is the finest entry in their filmography.

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Anchored by a superb ensemble including Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Frances McDormand (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Nomadland), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Under the Skin), and James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), the film follows Ed Crane (Thornton), a taciturn, almost nihilistic barber drifting through life in a small California town. His quiet routine is disrupted when a stranger offers him a dubious business opportunity requiring a significant investment. Suspecting his wife Doris (McDormand) of infidelity, Ed seizes what he sees as a chance to blackmail her lover and secure the money. What follows is a slow, inexorable spiral into a world of cruelty, crime, and existential uncertainty, where each decision carries unforeseen and often devastating consequences.

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The film feels like the perfect synthesis of the Coens’ longstanding preoccupations, blending their signature jet-black humour with a hauntingly enigmatic crime narrative. Shot in luminous black and white by Roger Deakins (whose collaborations with the Coens and work on the likes of Blade Runner 2049 and 1917 rank among the most visually striking in modern cinema) it stands as a masterclass in neo-noir aesthetics. Complementing the imagery is Carter Burwell’s astonishing score, arguably one of the finest film composers working today, scoring all the Coens big hitters as well the likes of Being John Malkovich, and the Twilight saga) this could easily be one of the best of his career, lending the film a melancholic, almost otherworldly tone.

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Looking back at the remarkable body of work from the (for now, at least) separated Coen Brothers, it’s hard not to marvel at a film that may well quietly rank among their very best, and is without doubt one of their most underappreciated. A film of unlimited pleasures that grows in interest with each re-watch ironically The Man Who Wasn’t There suggests that 'sometimes the more you look, the less you really know'. Highly recommended for big screen viewing in this brand new breath-taking 4K restoration.